Re: (OPE-L) Re: tendencies for equalization

From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Tue Sep 28 2004 - 10:28:23 EDT


 Gerry
--------------
As for social formations where the slave mode of
production dominated,  it makes no sense whatsoever
to talk about the effort of slaves to leave one sector and
enter another in search of a higher "return to labor."

So (to repeat) which pre-capitalist social formation are
you thinking of?
 --------------
Paul 

I missed this point of yours. What the slaves wanted
to do was relatively, - though not absolutely -, unimportant.
Slave owners could redeploy their slaves from one
activity to another to bring in greater returns.
This amounts to a mobility of labour.

The reason why I say relatively unimportant, is that
under Roman Law, though not under Anglo Saxon slavery,
there existed the 'peculium' whereby slaves were
allowed to engage in trade on a semi-autonomous basis
which allowed some self directed labour mobility. 


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 29 2004 - 00:00:03 EDT